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Camden Couple to Plead Guilty in Fake Will CaseLock Icon

2 min read

A Camden couple have decided to plead guilty to federal crimes related to a fake will for a survivor of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion who later died in a car wreck.

Marion “Diane” Kinley and John Wayne Kinley Jr. are set to change their not guilty pleas next Monday morning in U.S. District Court in El Dorado. Their jury trial was scheduled to start that day in front of Judge Susan O. Hickey, but it was canceled last week.

The Kinleys are charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The docket filing didn’t say what the couple will be pleading guilty to. Attorneys for the defendants and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Arkansas weren’t available for comment Thursday.

You remember the case: A former Camden real estate agent, Donna Herring, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and her daughter, Jordan Alexandra “Alex” Peterson, who will turn 23 on Wednesday, has pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the FBI. A sentencing date hasn’t been set for them. Herring faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Peterson faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Herring admitted to creating a will after Matthew Seth Jacobs, who had received a sizable settlement as a survivor of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in April 2010, died in a one-vehicle wreck in January 2015. The fake will left nearly all of Jacobs’ $1.7 million in assets to Peterson, instead of to Jacobs’ only child.

The indictment alleged that the Kinleys signed the forged will as witnesses after being asked to by Herring, who is Diane Kinley’s sister.

John Thomas Shepherd, the prosecuting attorney in El Dorado, couldn’t be reached Thursday for an update on his investigation into Jacobs’ death. In February, a Ouachita County judge granted Shepherd’s request to exhume Jacobs’ body, finding “reasonable cause exists to believe” that the death “occurred under circumstances contrary” to that of the auto accident and bodily trauma.

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